National overview
Andrew Yang’s baseless call to pull the flag off New York
On February 1, Andrew Yang – the author, entrepreneur, nonprofit and Democratic presidential candidate in 2020, who is now running for mayor of New York – tweeted that the official flag of his adopted city, a flag that is iconic over the skyline of New York waved. since 1915, should be inadvertently retired and replaced with a less “old” design. ‘The colors are based on the flag of the Dutch Prince. . . . The seal is old, ‘Yang claims, referring to the official NYC seal carried by the flag. ‘Corey Johnson [speaker of the NYC Council] suggested that a new flag be designed by artists in New York as a symbol of civic pride, ‘Yang declared – and Yang apparently agrees with him:’ I like the idea of a more modern flag for NYC. ‘In mnr. Yang’s philosophy that long life is apparently no sign of success. Forget the flag design for a moment. Why the concern about the age of the flag? The city of New York itself was first established in 1624 and is therefore centuries older than the flag of Yang is too geriatric to represent. So should the city of New York, or the state of New York, be abolished? Certainly not. Antiquity is not an argument against the NYC banner. Yang needs a better argument to convince New York to abolish the iconic flag designed by the 1915 Mayoral Committee. So enough with mere age as an argument. What about the flag itself? Should the banner of New York be thrown in the trash of history? Prior to June 1915, New York City had no official flag, and on an ad hoc basis used an unofficial white banner with the city seal. “To this day,” as reported in Seal and Flag of the City of New York (published in 1915), “the city of New York has never held an official flag in any true sense of the term.” Mayor John Purroy Mitchel has appointed a civic committee to produce an official flag and introduce a historically informed, standardized version of the city seal. The occasion was the 250th anniversary of the installation of the first mayor and council of New York City councilors in 1665, which marked the beginning of ‘New York City’ under English rule and the end of Dutch rule over New Amsterdam – apart from a period in 1673–74 when the Netherlands regained control. The blue-white-orange tricolor produced by the mayoral committee and approved by city council members in 1915 was a crushing victory of design and has flown proudly and characteristically across the New York skyline for the past 105 years. The city flag and the seal it bears combine the colors of the Dutch Republic’s flag with a ‘distinctive American’ eagle coat of arms on the city’s English coat of arms, creating a bold emblem that unmistakably represents New York and its past. The flag was intended to showcase the identity and origins of a fiercely proud American city. It was deliberately created to evoke the heritage and history of New York and New Amsterdam before it. The apparent “antiquity” of the emblem is intentional and not accidental. But it seems that all this history is being lost to today’s anti-flag crowd. Flag of New York City The design coup of the New York City flag is that it succeeds as a brave and energetic-looking symbol in a way that is not actually cultivated by its roots in the past. It also has the official meaning needed for a city like New York. While modern flag designers often criticize the use of putting stamps on flags, the NYC flag would be so if any design were an exception to this rule. The design has been working for 105 years. Why punish this flag for its success? The same can be said of the design of the seal itself. When the art committee of 1915 submitted the version of the city seal for approval to the council of mayors, it responded to the expected criticism of the design. The committee’s response prompted Yang’s complaints more than a century later: ‘It’s by no means a new design,’ said John B. Pine of the official arts committee, ‘and any criticism that it’s not nice or that it does not meet heraldic requirements is irrelevant. He added: “A more beautiful seal could undoubtedly be designed, but we consider it much more important to perpetuate the seal adopted by the Joint Council in 1686 and used by the city since that date,” but with slight change as the symbol of its corporate entity. (These words are found in the above-mentioned book, Seal and Flag of the City of New York. If that happens, John B. Pine himself processed the beautifully bound volume, which was officially approved by the mayor’s seal and flag committee. is an excellent read for anyone interested in the history of Gotham’s civic symbols, which can be found in the NYC Public Library and online, providing an in – depth background on the city’s emblems and brand new official flag. the blue and orange tinctures of the city flag. The publisher apparently did not share Yang’s doubts about the colors of the “Dutch prince”.) Anyone worried that the seal on the city flag is “old” has the boat with his concern gemis. with a good hundred years. The seal was of respectable age as early as 1915, when the art committee and aldermen enthusiastically applied it to the new Gotham tricolor. The flag was intended from the beginning as a large, civilian project that would take pride in a large American city. Burger artists have already designed the current flag, so retiring would be nothing more than disguising their work. This would be the same wrong as a ‘new flag’ would supposedly repair. This suggests that those opposed to the flag do not understand its history and consider it an honest game to create excitement and novelty for a civilian project. Finally, New York City is by far not the only city or county with the old Dutch, New Amsterdam colors. I am a lifelong resident of Dutchess County, New York, who also uses this aesthetic. But at least the NYC flag contains the Dutch colors in upright bars. With its orange-white-blue horizontal tricolor, the Dutchess County flag is an exact reproduction of the Dutch Prince’s flag, distinguished only by the digging seal. Ulster County is in the same predicament, as is Albany, the capital of New York State. The Western Province of Westchester, Yang, also aptly bears the Dutch colors on its flag. Americans have stubbornly displayed their heritage through civic symbols throughout the history of the country. Before Mr. Yang and his allies against the flag made another statement about a classic American emblem like the NYC flag, they must admit it. After all, the American flag itself bears the title “Old Glory” – and not as an insult. Editor’s Note: This article has been updated since its original publication.